Week 31: How Do You Doula?

A lot happened this week: I finally finished my baby quilt (It came out great!), we had our last HypnoBirthing class, and I met with a doula. “Doula” is one of those words I had never heard before I got pregnant – like “vernix,” which I recently learned is what the cheesy white stuff coating the baby’s skin after birth is called. Anyway, a doula is basically a birth coach.

“But isn’t that what my husband’s for?” you may be asking. Silly girl. Has your husband ever given birth before? Then how can you expect him to have any better sense of how it works than you do? Mine can’t even make it past the first chapter of the birth books.

Besides knowing what they’re doing – ideally by both attending births and having given birth themselves – doulas are also there to support you emotionally and physically. They will fetch you ice chips and rub your back. When I ask my husband for a backrub, he half-heartedly attempts a “massage” that mimics someone scratching a dog’s ears. It’s over in minutes and he usually keeps one hand on the remote control. Hardly a pleasurable experience.

My doula, Margo, looks about my age and has three kids. She has a pleasant, laid-back demeanor. When we met, she casually and discreetly nursed her 1-year-old while we talked. With her first baby, Margo told me she showed up for her doctor’s appointment a week before her due date and was told to proceed immediately to labor and delivery as she was already 8 cm dilated! (For those who don’t know, like me a week ago, the baby comes out at 10 cm, about the circumference of a CD. Try not to be alarmed.)

These stories are meant to be comforting in a “don’t worry, everyone’s birth is different” kind of way, but I find them maddening. In the movies, it works like this: a woman’s water breaks, she starts moaning and clutching her stomach, she’s rushed to the hospital, and she has the baby. In real life, apparently, you could be walking around for days, weeks even, with intermittent contractions – or none at all, like Margo! You could be in labor for days or hours. Your water could break on its own or the doctor may have to break it for you. There are way too many variables, people!! This is not reassuring to the first-time mother.

I guess the point of a doula is to help you handle the uncertainty and perhaps provide an educated opinion as to whether or not you are in fact in labor before you go waking your OB/GYN at 3 a.m. Though clearly Margo wasn’t exactly on top of things when she was giving birth herself for the first time. Hopefully she at least gives a decent back rub.